This invention relates to artificial neuron-like devices (hereinafter referred to simply as "neurons") for use in neural processing.
One of the known ways of realising a neuron in practice is to use a random access memory (RAM). The use of RAMs for this purpose dates back a considerable number of years. It has been suggested that if one were able to construct a RAM in which a given output, say a `1`, was produced by a given storage location with a probability between 0 and 1 (rather than with a probability of either 0 or 1 as in a conventional RAM), such a RAM would have a potential for constructing neural networks which mimicked more closely than hitherto the behaviour of physiological networks. (See Gorse, D., and Taylor, J. G., 1988, Phys. Lett. A, 131, 326-332; Gorse, D., and Taylor, J. G., 1989, Physica D, 34, 90-114). However, no proposal has hitherto been made as to how such a RAM, referred to there, and herein, as a pRAM, might be constructed.